Christ…he knew he’d been a mean son of a bitch these last few days. It had been deliberate. Because the fact that he hadn’t wanted to leave Suzanne the other morning had terrified him. He’d never not wanted to leave. But she was leaving. And it was just as well. She wasn’t cut out for this kind of existence. The fact she was standing here pissed at him about having her Christmas morning ruined was a classic reason why.

She didn’t understand the ranching way of life because she belonged in the city with its buildings and its galleries and its art. He was just helping to cement that in case thirty-six hours of mind-blowing sex was giving her any ideas to the contrary.

Giving him any ideas to the contrary.

“I know how much that portrait means to you. I would never take that from you.”

Their gazes met, and her eyes searched his for a beat or two as if she was desperate for assurance. “Thank you.”

Grady nodded. “I’ll get changed. Give me ten.”

…

Half an hour later, after a long, silent drive, they were pulling up in the parking lot behind the boardinghouse. Suzanne was used to Grady’s silences and frankly, right now, it suited her just fine. She was way too busy grappling with the mixed signals to talk to him anyway.

Damn the man to hell. He’d been so surly and noncommunicative these last few days, and then he went and did a 360 turn, showing remarkable sensitivity and…kindness in his assurance he had no intention of using his portrait as a bargaining chip. She’d wanted to smack him upside the head all morning as the clock had ticked by without him and she’d had to act her ass off playing the deliriously happy Christmas girlfriend in front of her parents. Pretending not only was it all fine, just fine, that he wasn’t there because ranchers didn’t get days off but insisting how heartbroken Grady would be if they didn’t all wear to Winona’s the T-shirts he’d picked out for them.

Yes, she’d promised him she’d do all the heavy lifting in this fake relationship scenario she’d foisted upon him, but she hadn’t expected it to be this damn hard.

But by the time he’d walked through the cabin door, she’d worked herself up into the kind of muted rage that husbands and boyfriend all around the world knew meant trouble. And then he’d taken the wind right out of her sails by rushing to put her mind at ease about the portrait.

Just when she’d thought he was irredeemable, he’d been compassionate.